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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Walking In Your Garden

There are no words that can adequately describe the feeling I had, the first time the doctor told me, “Your blood sugars are normal” I couldn’t wait to test out my new pancreas. For the first time that I can remember, I was able to drink regular soda, not diet. I was able to eat cake and pie with no change in my blood sugar level.

I was 2 years old when I was diagnosed with diabetes. The only life I knew up until that time was what I wasn’t allowed to eat. While all of the other children ate popsicles, cake or candy, my treat was celery with peanut butter or cream cheese. The discipline of a diabetic diet was not where I experienced the most freedom. I experienced the most freedom in my day-to-day living activities. I did not realize how much bondage I was in by doing all of the activities that I had to partake in just to be “normal.”

I no longer had to wait to eat. Or stop an activity to eat. When I decide to eat a meal I no longer have to count the carbohydrate exchanges and adjust an insulin pump. I no longer had to watch the clock and get home to do a dialysis treatment. I no longer suffered from low vision. So I have a driver’s license and can go where I need to go. These were freedoms that my mind could not entertain while I was faced with the obstacles of blindness, kidney failure and diabetes.

Sometimes we get so caught up with what we are experiencing, we miss the promise. Each one of us has a right to be free. Some of us are bound to debt, so we are in bondage to a job we don’t like. So to numb the pain we drown our sorrows in drugs, alcoholism, spending money we don’t have, or sex. The words of our naysayers ring in our ears. Someone we trusted violated that trust by destroying our self-esteem and they’re condemning words haunt you to this day. “You’ll never make it”, “You’re a failure”, “Nobody’s ever going to love you.”

Let me remind you that “You can and you will overcome”. I know this because God did it for me. He is not a respecter of people and what He does for one He will do for another. When Adam and Eve committed the first sin, God told our adversary the devil that He was going to send His son. God desires a relationship with you so much that He gave His Son as a sacrifice. He wants you to walk in the garden with Him again. Come join Him and experience a freedom that you never knew existed. I did, and let me tell you, it’s incredible.

3 comments:

Praise God Nate! I am thanking him for your successful transplant and healing! God is beyond what words can describe. I am a living witness to his power also. May God continue to Bless you and keep you!

The Miracle

STEUBENVILLE - Nate Freeman vividly recalls the day he woke up minus any ailments. He thanks God for that opportunity daily.

Freeman, a Steubenville native, received a kidney and pancreas transplant March 22 and said today he feels "like a brand new person."

"At first, I was scared to eat anything because I didn't want to mess anything up," he said with a laugh. "I have had a list of things I couldn't eat and dietary restrictions since I was little, so that took some time to get used to.

"I have never felt this great, ever. I don't have to deal with the highs and lows. I can eat what I want and I can exercise. I didn't really realize how much diabetes was affecting my life until it was gone."

In 1973, when he was 2, Freeman's parents, Nate and Diane, had to rush their son to the former Ohio Valley Hospital.

"I was in the early stages of a diabetic coma," he noted. "I was diabetic growing up and I constantly dealt with lows and highs. It was always rocky. I was able to play sports, but I just had to be careful. I remember one time when I was playing in a football scrimmage game at Weir and I had just had an insulin shot and went really low. I ended up passing out. Thankfully, that only happened three times in my life."

Then in 1996, Freeman, who was 25 at the time, had to undergo three major eye surgeries to fix complications of an eye disease, retinopathy, which is caused from being diabetic.

"The surgery was supposed to help clear out the old scar tissue," he recalls. "I had a successful surgery done on my right eye, but I woke up during the surgery in my left eye and that ended up rupturing the retina in both of my eyes. All I saw was black for six months. And then I remember one day I was sitting in class at the Franciscan University of Steubenville and I started to be able to see white and shapes. Finally, I was able to see again with the help of corrective lenses."

Freeman was scheduled for another minor surgical procedure in 2009.

"They were going in to take some fluid out of my ears, and when they did the bloodwork before the procedure, they found out that my kidneys were failing, which is another complication of diabetes. They ended up not being able to do the surgery and I started dialysis that day."

In April 2010, Freeman was placed on the kidney/pancreas transplant list at the Ohio State University Medical Center.

"The pancreas transplant was also vital because mine wasn't producing the insulin cells I needed and that was the root of all the problems," he explained.

By February, Freeman was hospitalized again with a blood sugar level of 1,168.

"The doctors were surprised that I could even walk into the hospital on my own," he added.

Finally, the day came where Freeman received the transplant.

"After 38 years of my family asking God for a miracle, I no longer suffer from diabetes or any of its complications," he said. "I was in the top 5 percent of people who have the procedure done and the doctor believes my procedure is a miracle after seeing how quickly and how great I am doing and recovering. The recovery rate is not that high for these kinds of procedures."

Freeman is a 1989 graduate of Steubenville High School, a 1995 graduate of Valor Christian College in Columbus and a 1999 graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville with a bachelor of science degree in business. In 2002, he was selected into the national leadership development program with the Social Security administration and led a national work group on homelessness. He oversaw an $8 million appropriation from Congress to help agencies nationally work with the homeless population.

Freeman currently resides in Reynoldsburg with his wife, Kate.

"I want to thank all of the people in the Steubenville area who prayed and believed in God for my healing and recovery," he expressed. "I especially want to thank my parents and extended family, my Steubenville city schools family, Pastor Everret Mitchell of Tower of Power, Pastor Bob Mazeroski of New Life Church in Weirton, Pastor Rod Parsley and the congregation at World Harvest Church and the family that lost a family member to give me life again."